Press Forward and Replay
by Sky Samuelle
Summary: GCB FutureFic. When Chuck comes to believe Blair isn’t over Nate, they break up and Georgina tries to come between them. Along the journey B learns to chase, C learns to believe, G struggles to cover up the fact that she can love.
1. Chapter 1

Press Forward and Replay

**Press Forward and Replay. **

**Author: **Sky Samuelle

**Summary: **Future Fic. Georgina, Chuck &Blair: the unrepentant evolution of a passionately dysfunctional triangle as years go by.

**Words**: 2980

**Ship: **major CB, minor CG

**Rating:** MATURE

**PROLOGUE**

Some relationships are too dysfunctional to follow a linear sequence in either time or space: they move in cycles, ever perpetuating old constants around new focal points, reaching new heights at each turn of their spiral even while dragging painful remnants of past. Eventually one pattern falls apart and everything begins again right where it had originated.

It's the nature of love: whether it is healthy or unhealthy, it connects people too deeply to not influence their evolution, and even when the aforementioned ones are too messed up to make it work.

Love is not pure or simple, because people are neither.

Our story begins with two angry rich kids and it grows to include three.

Because Chuck Bass didn't always hate Georgina Sparks and they weren't always part of a close-knit group of six… before C and G, King and Queen of mayhem, there were Charlie and Georgie: the little boy who grew up to believe he had killed his mother and the girl whose mother wouldn't believe her proper husband occasionally raped their liar of a little girl under their roof.

There was a time when those two kids were too undisciplined, too jaded, too angry to really fit in with others of their age. Oh, there was always a wild, almost animalistic magnetism to them and they were rarely alone. It didn' t matter that Georgie was moody and Charlie came from new money.

There was also a time when Chuck Bass used to look at Georgina and think of her as beautiful, a different brand of beauty than any other UES girl he knew.

Serena's beauty was like sunshine, light and warm but unsubstantial. It would occasionally blind him, overwhelm his sight for few seconds, but it always grazed fleetingly, never really leaving a mark.

Blair was snow, immaculate and glowing, but cold… so cold than it would give your fingers frostbite if you forgot your gloves.

Georgina was like glass – with her owlishly large, thick lashed blue eyes, her small nose and that pale angel-like face. She looked so deceptively transparent than you would miss the fine cracks on its shiny surface if your gaze wasn't keen and attentive.

Glass appeared indestructible but it broke easily in your hands and when it did, your flesh bled and scarred, but the pain was too real to not be welcome.

It was inevitable that eventually Chuck and Georgina came to exchange scars as Charlie and Georgie traded secrets.

--

"Where's your pot hiding?"

"I have a better idea to improve your day. "

"Like what?"

"My parents aren't home. Let's have sex."

Eleven years-old Chuck Bass' abruptly stopped rummaging among the drawers of the Sparks' deserted kitchen and turned to stare at the girl behind him. His expression twisted briefly in an oddly unbalanced mix of shock and distaste, and then cleared out to reflect only a stubborn indifference.

"No"

"No? Why not?" Georgina was absolutely incredulous before Chuck's firm and immediate rejection.

His voice rose almost in question: "Because I'm not in the mood? "

He felt terribly stupid the moment the words drawled out of his mouth. It wasn't such a big deal, anyway, and he didn't like how hard Georgina was glaring at him.

"Oh, shit." He huffed, trying to come across as anything but annoyed. "You win! Let's do it. "

"So undress already?" Georgina hissed right back, crossing her arms in front her chest. It was unsettling that Chuck was not giving in enthusiastically to her initiatives… this was the way it was between them. Unlike that Serena girl, who liked being cajoled and coddled in following Georgina or Chucks 's lead, he usually embraced her most daring ideas with the same gusto she reserved for his.

"I won't deflower you in a kitchen, it's proletarian!"

He wasn't too sure of what 'proletarian' meant , but he had heard his mother use that word in reference to his father's origins once, and it had sounded quite offensive.

Georgina rolled her eyes with an overdramatic sigh and took his hand to lead her guest upstairs, toward her bedroom.

She kissed him on the threshold, before he could bother closing the door behind them. She kept it up he was getting into it, until she could push him gracelessly on her bed.

His nose nuzzled the curve of her neck and Chuck felt a new kind warmth flowing underneath his skin, a new tightness in his belly that started as her dainty hands slid along his sides and skimmed under his shirt.

He felt a little detached from the situation as she touched him lower.

It wasn't that it was a novelty for him…something similar had already happened with his British thirty-something nanny last year. He had a suspicion that it was the reason his mother had fired her so fast and so brusquely. He hadn't spoken a word of it to anybody. He didn't know how he felt about it. Being manhandled wasn't as pleasant as the general talk made it out to be, and he hadn't liked how out of his element Patty's hands on him used to make him feel, like if that woman was taking possession of something of his.

Yet, boys were supposed to enjoy that kind of attention from beautiful females and Patty was pretty, old or not. Perhaps it will feel different with someone of his age.

"Will you do something too, or is it all on me?" Georgina muttered unkindly in his ear after nibbling on his naked shoulder, her fingernails scratching his chest. He answered her by suddenly rolling them over and pinning her underneath him. He smirked against her collarbone only to prove to her and himself he was perfectly capable to handle himself.

Ten years after Chuck Bass was experiencing actual, unmistakable, inescapable _emotional degradation_.

_Ugh. __How low the mighty have fallen._

The mere thought was enough to convince him to pour himself another glass of scotch. It burned his throat nicely, but the familiar taste sickened him. Why was it that every time he felt shitty, he drank that? He was beginning to associate the very smell of it with the very concept of misery, and it pissed him even more, because it was turning him off from drinking, and drinking himself to stupor was the only way he knew to stop berating himself for his stupidity.

Emotional degradation? Him? He had spent years guarding himself from this peculiar humiliation. Setting himself securely above it, to be as different as it was possible from his parents.

But all his experience and life philosophy meant nothing when it came to Blair Waldrof. It seemed he never learnt his lesson where that rabid bitch was concerned.

He had insinuated himself in her life knowing perfectly well what he was against: that his beautiful ice princess lived in an endless cycle of being with Nathaniel and not being with Nathaniel. Everything else was a diversion. She had used him that way once before, so long ago, and then brushed him gracelessly aside when the chance presented itself to have the love of her life back.

He should have known better than setting aside his pride and fighting his nature to enjoy a last chance with her.

He should have known better than trusting the appearances, believing she was over her silly fairy tales and actually happy on Chuck Bass' arm.

But what a wonderful actress she had been, with the glow of her lazy bedroom smiles and the unspoken promises in her eyes!

Maybe this time, Blair had wanted so much to be over Nate that she had managed to fool herself. Yet, no amount of pretending and wanting could erase the rampant jealousy that was revealed by the unexpected revelation of a Serena and Nate' s romantic reconnection.

Chuck should have found comfort in the notion that, at least, Nate would have never returned Blair's obsessive longing. He was already vindicated because Nate was so in love with Serena that Blair didn't stand a chance. She would suffer the same pain Chuck was forced to endure, with the same frustration Chuck was forced to digest.

But there was no consolation to be discovered in that truth, only a vague relief that he wouldn't need to retaliate.

It was such a waste of good intentions, really.

He laughed at himself while he remembered the ridiculous speech he had improvised at his father's wedding, playing his last hand to win her with a grand- if grossly uninspired and awkward feeling –gesture.

Romanticism was indeed overrated. Even now, he couldn't make a sense of it, but he had tried and strived to please her and in the end, his big gamble had publicly blew up in his face.

Maybe if so many people hadn't been there to witness his moral defeat, he would have kept Blair.

It wasn't like he put much stock in that True Love shit any way. That was Queen B' field of experience.

Chuck Bass preferred the tangible, and maybe he wouldn't care too much to know that his girlfriend still secretly carried a torch for his best friend. Chuck Bass knew better, he knew Blair and Nate couldn't work in reality, regardless of either's idealistic expectations.

But what did it matter if he knew Blair truly belonged with him, when all of Upper East Side knew, beyond doubt, that Blair was still firmly convinced of the opposite?

There was no way Chuck could withstand becoming a laughing stock for their so called friends, never mind his father.

Even Blair Waldorf wasn't worth his dignity.

It was sort of pathetic. He was celebrating that realization in the same place where this mess had started: Victrola.

His gaze grew unfocused as he tried, and failed, to lose himself in the haze, the blending of prosperous bodies, the sensually swaying and artificial shadows, decadent music angrily beating on his sore nerves.

Chuck closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, unwilling to mull again over how humiliating his position was. When he opened them gain, he was only half-surprised to spot a familiar figure among the crowd.

She had kept her hair waist-length as years passed her by, probably because she knew it made her to look older and more sophisticated. There was an exquisite irony in it. Her face insisted on retaining and showcasing the childlike innocence that she was been so determined to lose far too early and too roughly.

She had hated with a rare passion the guileless, cherubic softness of her features: she had taken to dissimulate it with scary tones of eyeliner and lipstick as soon puberty hit.

Maybe she still felt the same way because as she slowly cut her path through the colourful masses of costumers and dancers, holding proudly his gaze, he could notice her wide blue eyes were still framed by a thick over-abundant eyeliner and her full, smirking mouth coated with a dark red lipstick.

Her skimpy, black Chanel dress revealed that she was no longer as thin and bony as a steeotypical crack whore, but it at the same time, Chuck was reassured that Georgina Sparks hadn't given up attiring herself as one.

Obviously caring little for formal invitation, Georgina didn't hesitate to sit across from him and sport a unrepentantly, transparently mocking pout.

"Heartbreak doesn't become you, Chuckles. You will need to wipe that murderous expression from your face if you want one of your _entertainers_ … entertain you."

Strangely, even though she was tossing his face old childhood pet-names in his face, playing them with sugary gayety, her game still wasn't feeding his desire to strangle her.

Possibly because he expected worse from her.

Possibly because, even if they weren't friends, this nasty, cocky slut had managed to be there to provide a saucy commentary of his most important firsts.

She was been his first kiss and his first sex, his first companion to sniff gum, his first –and thankfully only - witness to finding his mother, so drugged up on antidepressants and alcohol, had crashed through the glass window of their balcony to the street below. She was the first to hear a drunken proposition of _' let's try out exclusivity and see how soon we get bored', only _ to laugh raucously in his face.

It was almost fitting that she was here now: nobody else rubbed salt in his fresh wounds better.

On the table separating them, his cell vibrated, Nate' s name glowing unabashedly on the display.

"Was London so boring that you had to bless me with your presence so soon?"

Since Georgina was an habitué of Victrola's and Chuck didn't despise her enough to refuse hosting a few of her wild parties, it was unavoidable and moderately comforting that he had a small measure of clearance to her movements.

"Apparently I haven't lost my infamous instinct to smell scandals. I'm only sorry I missed the Wild Brunch in person."

"Such a pity. I admit I found the spectacle morbidly refreshing myself."

It's usually easier acting out his part of unfeeling, experienced player if he is around his species. It forces him to put in real attempt, until he can almost delude himself into buying his façade.

Chuck was faintly smiling now, a sliver of bitterness in his words and a crisp of malice on his lips.

He commanded himself to not grab Georgina's hand as it sneaked out to grasp his still vibrating cell.

Fuck Nate. Blond or not; it wasn't _that _difficult understanding he was last person whose rambling Chuck wanted or needed to listen right now.

It half-tranquilized him, half-disappointed him that all that Georgie did was turning the interfering object off.

Their conversation ended there.

She purposefully slid beside him, tossing her long chestnut hair back to expose her pale neck. He responded the dare in her eyes by surrounding her waist with his arm and pulling her roughly closer, easily falling flush against his chest.

Moving agilely over him, Georgina straddled him and arched her back to bring her breasts invitingly close to his face.

He didn't bother questioning why she was offering herself to him so eagerly, without insisting on the antagonistic foreplay they had once so viciously thrived on, that had been essential in their long time past run-ins.

Whether it was lust or revenge motivating her, it no longer made a difference.

Blair's feelings were no longer a concern of his and it was insane this left him feeling bereft, stupidly deprived of something which was never properly his to begin.

Blair's demands weren't his debt anymore, and it was strange suddenly realizing that he was so separated, so drastically and permanently distanced from someone so deeply ingrained in his daily routine.

Georgina's nails dug painfully in his nape, bringing his mental processes to a brusque halt.

This was exactly what he needed: absorbing himself in a physicality too blunt to ignore, forgetting Blair's betrayal in something more fierce than alcohol-induced numbness.

Somehow, he forced last two years to slowly fade from his memory.

If only for a moment, he wished and managed to erase them from existence.

He brought himself far, far back and when he blinked again, sighing against Georgina's soft throat, he had persuaded himself he was still fourteen and a unremorseful playboy, Blair Waldrof nothing more than Nate Archibald' private territory.

And Miss Sparks… wasn't Whorgina just yet but a mysterious, tempting 'maybe', because this was before she slipped him a roofie -at that stupid, stupid party- for her perverse amusement. This was before she set _Chuck Bass_ up for the single most embarrassing moment of his life: the morning after when he was been horrified to awake to discover himself squeezed in between Georgina and _Carter Baizen. _

No need to say, it was that morning Chuck's positive sentiments towards his previous mentor and his childhood playmate had evaporated into a silently, dignifiedly simmering resentment.

They held onto each other tightly, as she rode him hard and fast, as his mouth latched desperately on the half-forgotten sensitive spot on the back of her neck. Her crawls dug in his side and into his shoulderblade.

Orgasm came over them violently, carelessly, quickly.

They untangled moments after it, and exchanged barely a glance before she turned her back on him and left.

Chuck didn't see Georgina again until 3 months after.

It was the Rio's carnival, and he woke the morning after to find himself naked, hung-over and still buried inside her. She was passed out on top of him. Apparently, they had screwed each other into exhaustion.

He smirked, in spite of the killer headache and the horrid taste on his tongue, because he could dazedly remember glimpses of their last conversation from the previous night.

She had made some sort of pass to him, or maybe insinuated that he wanted her. He had laughed it off.

"_I wouldn't bother. You are that drunk than you wouldn't last 5 minutes before passing __out on me"_

"_Bass, if we were fucking, I wouldn't be the one to pass out". – for a moment there was been something almost endearing in the steel of her ice blue gaze while she leaned in , but the deliberate viciousness of what she said next ruined it– "or maybe Queen B has so neutered you than you don't rem-"_

_That hit too close home, and the only way he could erase the score before she realized she was winning was to shut her up once for all._

_In a single movement, he closed the distance between them, engaging her lips in a maliciously fervent, voracious kiss, the likes of which they hadn't shared in years_


	2. Chapter 2

Press Forward and Replay: Chapter 1

**Press Forward and Replay: Chapter 1. **

"All this time we were together… you were never over _him_! I can't believe I've wasted…" Chuck couldn't choke out the last few words, he was too out of his mind. His jaw was clenched hard, dark eyes burning with wrath, handsome features contracted into a mask of livid loathing.

Blair was sure, at this moment, she had never seen her boyfriend more furious but there must be something very twisted in her, because even now, in the midst of their very serious fight, the sight of his usually collected and controlling self so unwound, so incensed because of _her _awoke a dark, lustful awe inside her. "I'_m_ over Nate" she clarified, trying to sound nothing less than conciliatory, and as far from guilty as she possibly could. "I just…"

"You just couldn't tolerate him and Serena breaking their sweet news to us? You just couldn't stop yourself from making a grand, public scene?! "

He wouldn't forget the humiliation of it, never. The way his father and Lily had looked at him after Blair stormed away from the Bass annual brunch. The way Serena rose to run after her. The way Nate' s gaze was glued to the floor. The whispers around their table after the show was done. The sympathetic expression on Eric's face, or the impatient distaste on Cece's visage.

But most of all, Chuck would never forget the way his shock had kept him glued to his seat, frozen like he could actually force last thirty minutes to be disappear by simply refusing to metabolize them. If only he could avoid taking another breath, then there would have been nothing to deal with. If only Serena and Nate had not choose the most inappropriate time and place to alert their best friends to the truth that they were in love and pursuing it this time around. He wouldn't have had to see Blair going so tense and silent, and then blowing up in Serena's face with a string of insane accusations.

Even now, the brunette girl's delicate eyebrows furrowed as she gritted out "It's nothing like that. Look, I- I thought Nate was pining for me again, okay? "

"What?"

Blair flinched, almost ashamed. Her motivations were been sounder and clearer when confined solely to her own mind. She had reminded herself there was no real reason for feeling guilty.

"Come on, he breaks up with Vanessa and suddenly he is always crashing on your couch and playing third wheel. We were speaking again, and he was really, actively paying attention to what I said for once. He confided in me. I liked the idea that he was missing me while I was finally happy. And then he and Serena come out the closet and announce that they were been seeing each other behind our backs and I feel stupid. You know I hate feeling stupid. I hate that Serena always takes everything from me. "

Chuck actually laughed at this, startling her a little and giving her the first hint this might become a more significant discussion than she had originally thought.

"From today on, you can count me on that list too"

"Don't be stupid", she bit back. "I've said I'm not in love with him anymore. I don't want him. I only hate S getting him in the end because it's like admitting in my face that I was a mistake."

"Great." Chuck's sarcasm sounded cold, even to his own ears. "'It's not a matter of love, but of dignity' isn't really persuasive point for your case!"

She experienced a sudden fit of irrational fear: she needed to fix this soon, before everything became uglier and out control, but she didn't know how.

"I love _you, _alright?"

Blair said it to salvage the situation, even if at this point of her life she wasn't sure of what love meant anymore.

She remembered demanding those three little words from him once, threatening to leave a party with some insignificant, but athletic and noble-blooded, guy. She remembered Chuck stuttering and failing to say the words. When they had finally decided to give each other another chance, they had more or less silently agreed to skipping the verbalization of their feelings in favour of proving them with their actions. That mostly translated to having frequent, wild, hot sex.

Chuck rolled his eyes and smirked coldly. "I don't believe you"

Again, the sarcastic edge to his words wasn't helping. It was rather irksome, in fact. "Why hell not?"

"I want it to be true." He admitted.

There was an eerily firmness, an indifferent sincerity to that cut-and-dry statement that made Blair uncomfortable. "Chuck…"

"You should go. I don't want you here again."

She came closer instead, putting her hands on his chest, and softening her voice. She purposefully pleaded ,a seductive undertone laced through her words. "Don't be like this"

The instinct to mock the obviousness of her manipulation rose, but all that Chuck had the energy to do was keep up a smug grin. He was tired of this conversation. So he kissed her, ravaging her mouth with an impulsive, raw and despairing rage that she lost no time in returning.

Blair knew then beyond every other certainty that she loved his lying, too frequently kissed lips and the venom they could spawn. Just like she loved his eyes, that were so dark they could appear completely black but so effective in dissimulating his emotions or in conveying that cunning, cutting quality to his gaze. She loved his hands and the hell they could expertly wreak on her senses.

She was not as certain that she loved him, in the most romantic meaning of the word, or if this was only how it felt to mix friendship and lust. She had stopped wondering about that after that sadly famous summer when he had ditched her at a certain helipad, refusing to accompany her on an Italian vacation _he _had suggested. But there was something she had learnt from that, and it was this: despite all the hassle, the conflict and the pain that came hand in hand with Chuck Bass, it was more of a pain to not be with him.

Besides, she loved his hands.

Those skilful, possessive hands that were on her waist now, and that pulled her slightly back when she tried crushing her body to his. His hands that kept their distance even while their kiss grew more restless and slower. Blair was not surprised when Chuck backed her against the wall and pulled back, his movements firm and his eyes cold in a way she found masochistically attractive.

"We've done"

It shocked her when he moved farther away from her and left without another word. She looked after him, grazing her swollen lips with hesitant, reverent fingertips.

She could still taste him.

There was no need to get alarmed. They weren't breaking up for real. She only needed giving him a couple of hours to cool down, and then they would move past this.

Few hours later, when her cell rang and she opened the text message to read latest Gossip Girl update, Blair realized she had been fooling herself. Again.

**Spotted: C and G all over each other at Victrola's. Watch out, Queen B : maybe you were too busy eyeing N & S to guard your prize. Apparently you weren't the only one tending to old flames …and there's a whole fire brewing on that leather boot. Our resident king and Queen of Mayhem make it to the second place on our Wall Of Kink with this latest exploit of theirs. It's good to know we can count on them to colour interesting an old cliché like Sex in a Public Place. **

Her fumbling fingers wanted to delete the text right away, but she couldn't stop herself from staring at those two idiotic, ugly pictures.

They weren't close up, but they were eloquent enough as it was: there was Chuck, his face half-hidden by a curtain of brown hair, that shank thrashing over his lap and holding on him in such a way that it was unmistakably obvious they were having sex.

And Blair felt so damn alone and so damn cold all of sudden. Somewhere inside there was anger stirring too, at herself and him and _that whore_, but it was a loose emotion, too vaguely focused to matter.

Holding her hands to her mouth, she closed her eyes and tried to breath, tried to stifle her sobs, hold in her tears.

She rocked her body back and forth, an obnoxious, hushed murmur inside her mind drumming incessantly: _'It's not fair. We were broken up for less than a forth-night. Why had it to be her? Why did it have to be there? Has he done that to hurt me?' _

_Blair Waldrof_ was a fighter. She was done crying over boys, Especially that one. She's finished a lot time ago.

She could be impenetrable to those who didn't deserve her trust and often just as much to the ones who did.

It was her hardness that had allowed her to sustain Serena through years of debauchery, unruly behaviour and foolish bravado. To love that unreliable, loose, blonde girl like a sister even while it was so damn difficult, so unavoidably damaging to be forever her clutch, her un-shining sidekick..

It was her hardness that had allowed her to persist as Chuck's girlfriend for two years, in spite of both their tempers, because by God, maybe they were far from perfect together but it always felt like if nobody else would properly do it for both of them.

Too bad tears were flowing freely on her cheeks and she was breathing only in small grasps, because it was too difficult to not whimper.

She was the girl who held on her fantasies because they wouldn't ever come true. In her fantasies she didn't have to love without moderation, didn't have to hurt beyond recovery.

_Why couldn't I just have told him that?_

A shame _Blair Waldrof_ was never been any good at closing her heart when _he_ was concerned; that boy who had saw her (maybe _loved_ her) in a way she had never asked him to see her, the boy who had forced her with his dubious, wily charms to need him in a way she had never wanted to need anyone, much less that _Chuck Basstard._

Because the ironic half of the deal was that Chuck hadn't technically cheated on her, but she was tasting all the betrayal, all the hurt anyway. It was one of those moments when it feels like you are struck in slow motion, the world around you rushes by as everything is breaking and crumbling into dust around you, even those things you used to believe most solid and true.

They had been so many things to each other and now it meant nothing.

Nothing.

They avoided each other for months after that, and this was an amazing feat in itself considering they both attended Yale, they both moved in the same social circle and her best friend was his stepsister.

Serena and Nate felt too guilty to interfere, so they allowed them to pretend the big pink elephant didn't exist. Eric tried his best to mediate reconciliation, but all the fruit his discreet attempts bore him was the necessity to eventually pick a side.

He chose his brother's by accepting to associate with Chuck in opening a new Victrola in London.

And then a Carnival in Rio marked the beginning of a new course.

Contrarily to common belief, Georgina Sparks didn't think she had a dependent personality.

Sure, she was a coke junkie, but Cocaine was her favourite vice because being high gave her only chance to let control slip away, to slip away from herself. She liked even paying the burnt of: less than few minutes, often only sparse seconds, of ecstasy and exhilaration followed by an hour of sedation, and then by a vicious craving for the next hit.

Pleasure and its fair castigation within her avid grasp: it was sweet.

Eventually she accepted treatment. To lose a vice, you can only substitute it with another, and she had many vices. But her heart had always remained untouched by anything really, and so she was always somehow free. Hollow and empty within, but free.

Hearts were flimsy, mostly useless things. They died easily if left dry long enough. When she was younger, she liked imagining that hers was been horribly mangled. She used to dream about it, her father's bloody hands cupping that little, purpose less bundle of pulsating red meat and squeezing it until it went white and wrinkled, an oily smile on his mouth.

Her father had loved her once, or at least had led her to believe that was love. Those secret touches in the night, those endearing pet-names whispered in her ear, sneaking in her room by night-time, kisses her hair when mommy wasn't looking.

_Shh, sweetie. Will you be good for daddy?_

Then as her body stopped being fresh enough, young enough, it had become indifference, long cold silences, and gazes that passed right through her.

She hadn't understood it at first, why everything was different, why she was no longer beloved, no longer treasured.

But she realized it eventually. She came to believe that love was only using, abusing, stealing, wasting. It had angered her; it had taught her to seek vindication. Except that her mother wasn't interested in believing, knowing, or caring; only in turning her away with disgust in her reproaching voice and frigid jealousy in her motherly gaze.

Just like that, Georgina Sparks had opened her eyes and realized the real world had no colours, but endless shades of grey. Only two people even stood out in stark Technicolor within the bland blurring of too many unimportant faces. The first was Serena Van Der Woodsen, her most favourite, willing puppet: soft and charming, affectionate as a lost puppy and even more inoffensive. An admiring, ever joyful audience to her countless charades.

The other was Charlie Bass, the boy whose salty tears she had once licked off his closed eyelids, the only creature she had ever considered her equal, and once he had grown into a man, the only one she found remotely useful outside a bedroom. Chuck knew how to be as wicked and cruel as her, was as sharp in mind, action and wit, as fierce tempered and as full of conflicts. He was the only one whose taste she could sometimes remember with startling clarity.

Maybe it was the incest taboo that never grew old, but she fantasized about them together, occasionally. Serena's long, slender legs wound tightly around Chuck's hips while he thrust into her hard, powerful just like she remembered he could be. Serena's limpid azure irises darkening for a moment. Chuck's dirty talk tainting and arousing effortlessly. Sometimes she imagined herself with them, pictured them holding her and worshipping her with their lips and hands, making her new and pure. Serena cradling her and lavishing her with tender, almost motherly caresses while Chuck pushed in and out of her ruthlessly.

But outside that, she had written them off her list long time ago.

Perhaps it was natural Georgina that came to change her mind swiftly, in a blink of eye. She simply saw _him,_ humiliated and alone,glaring ardently at his scotch while one of his dancers paraded her assets in his stony face, and her only, imperious thought was: '_Mine'. _

new and pure. Serena cradling her and lavishing her with tender, almost motherly caresses while Chuck pushed in and out of her ruthlessly.

But outside that, she had written them off her list long time ago.

Perhaps it was natural Georgina that came to change her mind swiftly, in a blink of eye. She simply saw _him,_ humiliated and alone,glaring ardently at his scotch while one of his dancers paraded her assets in his stony face, and her only, imperious thought was: '_Mine'. _


	3. Chapter 3

Press Forward and Replay: Chapter 2

**Press Forward and Replay: Chapter ****2**

It was about 3:00 AM when Chuck awoke to the insistent drill of the cell on his nightstand. He reached for it blindly, his face still buried in his pillow, his mind fogged by sleep. He was too far gone to grace the caller ID with a glance, or he would have thought better of taking the call. Perhaps.

"What are you and Eric doing in London?"

The shrill female voice from the other side confused him so much than he found himself propping up on his elbows and shaking his head to clear the residual grogginess. "Blair? " There was something wrong with that. Right. They were broken up. Two weeks, four days, few hours ago. It freaked him out that he knew to put it in those precise terms, and soon he was fully conscious and annoyed.

"Yes, it's _Blair_" Came the just as annoyed reply, and he noticed her voice was slurring around the edges.

"You should stop with this weird habit of drunk-dialling."

It were been years from last time it had happened, but the fond memories coloured his tone with reluctant amusement.

"You should stop deflecting my questions"

Yes, his ex was definitely drunk. How morbidly diverting. "It's a bit late to play the jealous girlfriend"

Or soon, if you took the time zone in account.

"I'm only curious, not _jealous_"

Chuck sighed into the phone, rolling his eyes and scratching the back of his head tiredly. "Just ask Serena, she will tell you that I and my dear brother have a project. A business project, if you must know. Now, if you have done nagging- "

"Wait!" she all but shrieked in his ear.

"What?"

"I knew that. I just needed to ask something, something else."

"So hurry up."

Blair huffed. Under other circumstances, it might be been cute. Only in the most pathetic sense of the word, of course.

"Why had you to pick Georgina fucking Sparks to cheat on me? Out of all the tramps-"

"I don't believe this," Chuck hissed, more to himself than to her. "You ignore our break up for weeks, you act like you haven't a care in the world, get drunk and then you call me to accuse me of cheating? We were O-V-E-R!"

"For what, five minutes?"

"You, me, Victrola and a limousine. It's not that difficult to recall. "

"_We_ were different!"

"I'll bet." It was been different. For him. He wished he could make it untrue, because even then, she had wanted only forget their night - her first one!- and backtrack fast into Nathaniel's indifferent embrace. He should to have taken his clue then.

"I wasn't setting us up to spite Nate. You were there for me and I needed that. Feeling good. We were friends. I've not picked you to shove _it_ in his face."

"Oh, and I did? Great! I hate disappoint you sweetie, but when I was screwing Georgina, you were last thing on my mind!"

Her drunk laughter was crackling, false, maybe more mocking than it would have been if she was been sober.

"Am I supposed to believe that your fling had some deep meaning? You despise her as much I do!"

"It meant she was a good fuck. It made me feel so very _good_. "

Blair hung on him before Chuck could formulate a more scathing comeback. It was a shame because his mind was swirling with them. Literally. There was no returning to sweet Morpheus' arms.

He was absolutely livid.

Frigid bitch! How did she dare to call him just to sooth her stupid ego? After ignoring him for weeks! Where did she get the right to berate him? She was the one moping over someone else! If Blair was been really jealous she would run for his scalp off right away. Not now.

It didn't matter. He wasn't supposed to care anyway.

Unwilling to be left a prisoner to his thoughts, Chuck decided there was no reason Eric should enjoy a good night of sleep if his big brother could not. After all, misery loved company. So he literally jumped off the bed, briefly considered picking the dandiest outfit in his closet, then got impatient and flew out his room to bang on his brother's suite's door.

"Chuck?"

Eric was reasonably surprised to find his stepbother on his threshold in the wee hours of morning, in his silk pyjamas nonetheless.

"Blair Waldrof is the biggest, coldest bitch on the planet." Chuck paused a moment to take in the startled expression on his interlocutor's visage, then added "and I've no idea of how I could tolerate her so long, let alone date her ".

The blonde boy sighed and rubbed his bleary eyes, determined to summon whatever powers of clarity he could access before the dawn. If Chuck and Blair kept this pace up, he would be in need of therapy soon.

Eric stood aside and let his brother in.

By 5:30 AM the two boys were sitting on Eric's bed, waiting on room service for an early breakfast. Chuck was still ranting and Eric still nodding at opportune intervals while silently thanking whatever deities were listening and had allowed him to switch his brother off alcohol and onto caffeine.

Eventually, Chuck stopped talking and looked expectantly at his brother. "Well?"

"Don't get offended- "

"Why it is that whenever people say that, they usually follow up with something highly offensive?"

"Don't you think you and Blair are acting _both_ a bit immature about this situation? It's not like you can erase two years of your lives on a moment's spur. You need to talk to each other. Calmly. Without going for the each other's jugular. "

"There's nothing to talk about. She wants Nate and I don't want someone who doesn't want me. It's simple enough. Being used as a rebound is beneath me. It has a depressing effect on my libido too, which is even graver. "

"Okay, I get that. But you knew each other for all your lives. You used to be friends. You might want to salvage that, at least. "

"I'm not interested in making her feel better."

"I think-"

"Whose side you are?"

Eric sighed, defeated. If there was a personality flaw Chuck and Blair strongly shared, it was the fact that you couldn't talk them into a sane course of action when they were in this sort of mood. This was 'war-is-brewing' mood. The saddest thing was, anyone with a functioning brain could tell they were made for each other, if for no other reason than no one else could stand beside them and survive very long. And yet they didn't seem capable of drawing back their claws and behaving like adults.

"Yours. And it is exactly why-"

Room Service interrupted them right then. Maybe it was for the best.

_More or less 3 months after._

"Next time, I want that you strangle me with your scarf while you take me."

Chuck rolled on his side and warily eyed his naked bed-fellow. Georgina's slender body was supine and fully exposed, sheets pooling between their legs, and she appeared unsurprisingly at ease with her nudity as she played with a tendril of her dark hair, whose long strands were spread over her pert breasts. Her eyes stared vacantly up the ceiling. Even her tone while she suggested her latest quirk was been nonplussed.

Go figure.

"I can be perverse and perverted, Georgie, but even I have standards."

"Really? "

Her mock disbelief could have offended him if he had cared about her opinion. Yet, it did force Chuck to consider whether it was a good idea to get involved with someone whose bedroom caprices bordered on masochistic.

It was been very relaxing so far; bedding someone who thrived on violence and had a darker soul than his. It had been an outlet for the silent anxiety crawling somewhere inside him and a way to separate himself from Blair; to prove that he could sense a connection without getting in too deep.

But it could become a problem. Georgina was mentally unstable and destructive, even with her coke addiction and adolescence out of her system. They had already fucked four or five times since they had came back to New York after the Rio Carnival. He needed to quit now, before the woman formed some weird concept of ownership. Except that quitting Georgina meant welcoming back the brainless bimbos or social climbing whores he had used before his involvement with The Waldrof. The prospect was repulsive.

"It turns me on when you scowl" Georgina murmured in his ear, her cool hand tracing leisurely the contours of his jaw and chin. He grabbed her wrist to shrug off the touch when her fingers reached his mouth. "Anything turns you on"

Her lips twisted in a cynical smirk as her blue eyes smugly raked all over him. "I like to think I've a healthy appetite"

"I remember" His voice came out husky; alerting him to the fact he was becoming aroused. He contemplated why while he nibbled on her fingers. Georgina was dangerous. She could turn on him in any time, without a sensible reason. She was a ruthless slut who genuinely, passionately enjoyed anyone's suffering, included hers…

Okay, thoughts like these wouldn't help. They were merely getting him harder.

"Let's test it out"

He murmured, pinning her underneath him, gratified by how accommodatingly she submitted to their shifting positions.

Heat flooded through his body as Georgina purred: he was mouthing along the curve of her neck. The sound blasted into his brain a chain of vivid images: another brunette, a smaller and more softly rounded body, a different touch. Blair had purred often, too, but with more softness. The sound had possessed a deeper sensuality then, almost like an acoustic caress to his excited senses.

Georgina pulled her body flush against his, one hand cupping the curve of his bottom, the other sliding possessively up and down his back, her nails scraping his skin.

The taste, the smell, the sensation of her around him were all different. Wrong, yet not.

There were similarities which entwined the opposites together within his mind on the most unexpected occasions, and when it happened, he couldn't tell from where the longing came from or to whom it was directed. 

But he wanted and craved, so achingly then that he could block out anything but the tendrils of hot lust that embedded themselves into every thought.

Life had to go on.


	4. Chapter 4

Press Forward and Replay: Chapter 3

"Ashtray"

Her voice was velvet as her palm opened in a silent offer that was mirrored in her icy gaze. The shallow light was shimmering behind those pale irises, challenging and goading in equal measure. It was just as enthralling and just as repulsive as it was always been.

Chuck didn't flinch, not externally anyway, but instead reached out to bid her will.

He butt out his joint on her proffered hand, his eyes never leaving her face, refusing to look while the ash burned her flesh.

It was an old game and the gesture was automatic, almost unwilling.

He studied her expression intently as it changed from mildly expectant to pleasured.

Georgina closed her eyes and hummed, her lips pouting, her palm pressing upward toward the source of heat.

He knew it wouldn't scar, probably her skin would bear the burn for few days, maybe only hours- but something kept bothering him. They were no longer kids, and pot was supposed to go out of fashion once you got past college.

This joke had felt daring and kinky when they were thirteen but now it was just plain old.

For him at least, because Georgina seemed to enjoy it even more than in past. Her stance had grown stiffer, her thighs clenched together while she sat up straighter. Her shoulders were finely trembling and he was willing to bet she was probably dripping wet, already.

"You are such a freak" Chuck apathetically stated.

Georgina opened her eyes slowly, a lazy grin of unadulterated satisfaction working its way up her full lips. When she spoke, she sounded sultry, tempting, fully aroused. "The question is, Chuckles, whether I'm more of a freak for asking, or you for complying."

"Fair enough" He laughed, scooting closer to her. The joint had fallen forgotten on the table.

They leant toward each other, foreheads touching and eyes beckoning, teasing to see who would give in first. This time, it was her. Her kiss was punishing, and far too aggressive. He liked that about her. His hand slid under the slit of her skirt to find her open and bare to his probing touch. He was always been very fond of this kind of surprises, too. As foreseen, his fingers discovered her flesh warm and wet.

Damn, she knew to stroke his ego, at the very least!

Chuck inhaled sharply as her leg lifted to bend an odd angle around his waist, pulling his groin against hers. Her hands were already undoing his shirt clumsily, and she nibbled his jaw eagerly.

He kissed her harder while he spun her around, and she gasped loud, rolling her hips against his thighs when he inched his leg between hers and her back hit the table behind them harshly.

It occurred him that he was probably enjoying this because of, not despite, her being a freak.

With Georgina around, he had never needed to be the instigator, never felt like the villain or the aggressor.

She was poison, a broken girl turned in a raging beast, and if she poured her taste forcefully in his mouth, all what he felt was a lust for her hunger and her bitterness. If only for those sparse moments of brutality, he understood with vivid clarity how much of a necessity he was to this woman. He couldn't recall another time he had felt so vital to another human being, and the sensation was so empowering that it got his blood boiling every miserable time.

Talk about twisted.

Twenty minutes later, he was showering in her bathroom.

Georgina stood outside its door, wrapped in only a silk cobalt-blue bathrobe. Her bare feet sidestepped a rumpled skirt on the floor. His shirt and pants weren't too far away but her blouse was nowhere to be seen. She wasn't the type to pick up and fold anything, anyway.

She was too sore. It was the way he always left her, the state their enthusiastic quickies reduced her to, she never minded as much he did. That's not what was bothering her.

She remembered exactly how her last fling with Chuck Bass had ended. They were been little more than kids then, and it was been easy to flaunt in front of a jeering public how they had outgrown their childhood friendship. The reality was been very different and behind their open warfare, the occasional public humiliations they inflicted on each other, their proclaimed avoidance of each other, there were been rules. Silence over the secrets they had once shared, and mutual non-interference over their present or future private social carnages.

They hadn't grown apart overnight, regardless of what anyone else thought of it. There were been telltale signs, the very same she could read in him now. Today, like yesterday, Chuck was both enthralled by her abyss and terrified of what it echoed inside him. He craved to drown himself in her, but the next moment he was horrified to discover bits of himself in her reflection. He had run away the first time, and he was just about to run from her again. She knew it. It was in the brusque manner he had disentangled himself from her, and his sudden spurt toward the bathroom. It was going to happen soon. She could picture Chuck, right now, scrubbing furiously at his skin under the spray, deluding himself into believing he could wash her off his lean body. Georgina could have pitied him, if she wasn't been so annoyed.

She knew that Blair Waldorf was part he was holding back and that only increased her irritation with him and her determination to keep him.

Little Miss Perfect had always grated on her. Not only because back in the old days, Georgina never could manoeuvre Serena into dumping that interfering wannabe keeper, or even because Blair and Chuck had always seemed instinctively aware of each other. It wasn't even because the little bitch had signed her in for a lovely summer camp, years ago. There was also something about the whole Porcelain Doll package that had spiked her intense dislike from the very beginning. It was everything about her: the pearls, the cool exterior, the poised stance and proper behaviour. It was an echo of the girl Georgina imagined her mother having been.

Giving over Serena to her was disappointing, but unavoidable. Serena was weak, and weakness wasn't a quality Georgina could tolerate. She thrived to violate it, but nothing more.

Chuck was another matter entirely. There was a consistent portion of the ruthless player that he used to be, of his rough approach to sex in particular, that she had moulded with her wicked instructions and through their power-play. Blair had nearly nullified her work, mellowing him with her fuzzy feelings and illusory promises of forever. Even today, in his touch, Georgina could sense a carefulness which hadn't been there once upon a time.

Chuck thought he could leave her behind again, let her down easy and painless by disappearing on short trips abroad with the youngest Van Der Woodsen. She wouldn't allow it.

She was just letting him to think that he could get away, that he could leave her again. It all fell perfectly in place with her plan.

Weeks later.

"Why hell there are three pregnancy used tests in your bathroom?"

"What are you, my house keeping team?"

Clad in her bathrobe, Georgina smiled distractedly in front of Chuck's obvious agitation. She brushed her wet hair, her eyes focused on the mirror of her vanity, observing his reflection as they pretended to study hers.

He had scurried out the room, still naked and dripping wet after his shower, holding one of the offending items in his hand.

"It's positive!" he accused, voice low and dark gaze that all but screamed murder.

Georgina laid her comb down, sighing in apparent boredom before turning to face her lover.

" I know" she stressed slowly, like if talking to a particularly dim-witted child. "It's not really your business. Behave."

"It can't be mine. I thread carefully about this sort of things."

She shrugged indifferent, already turning back to her vanity and her comb. "Not always."

"Aren't you supposed to be on the pill, anyway? "

"No safety system is bullet proof Chuckles."

"This is not amusing in the least, Georgina."

"Oh, I think it is. You are my most probable Daddy-candidate. Can you imagine you and I blended together in any form? I could be expecting the Anti-Christ. "

Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose and turned his back on her, inhaling deeply.

There was no chance the baby was anything but his, actually: she was been very careful about that. It had taken a certain constraint abstaining from sex while he was away, but the look of frustrated panic on his face now was a very satisfying award. Bless modern medicine for fertility cures: Hormones had spared her a lot of time and patience.

"You are less than 3 months along, right? You can't terminate it unless-"

"I don't know. I haven't gone to see a doctor yet, but I'm playing with the idea of keeping the little monster. We are both so pretty. It might be a waste. "

His mouth opened and closed without a sound twice. It was very difficult to not smirk and keep up her apathetic façade. Scratch that, she was smirking. But just a little.

"Georgie- he inhaled a bit too deeply, again- if there are two people on this earth who shouldn't be allowed to procreate separately, let alone together, it's you and I. "

"Way to be a Drama Queen, Chuckles"

"You are not the nurturing type. At all. Are you joking me? "

"There are nannies to do the nurturing, sweetie. I'm only supposed to sacrifice until I can shove our spawn out of my body."

Chuck's attempt to still the frantic flow of his thoughts were fruitless ; his head felt crowded and messy. He needed a joint. Or Eric, His brother could reason coherently enough for both of them. "You aren't serious, and I'm refusing to consider your humour humorous ."

Georgina rolled her eyes and laughed jeeringly. "Chill, lover. It's just a thought. I'm not exactly dying to be fat and sober for nine months or so."

That didn't sound anywhere close to reassuring in his brain. "Just to be clear: I'm taking no responsibilities until there's a paternity test done."

By a doctor he trusted. He was so NOT taking her word at face value.

She appeared unabashedly amused at that. "Does it mean you would like to be informed about my decision? "

Eric had never understood why, in the Upper East Side, life had to flip 180° from fully promising to unbelievingly shitty in a matter of seconds. Did it always have to be everything or nothing?

He had thought things were looking up, lately. Serena was finally getting back the nerve to settle in a serious relationship after that disastrous rollercoaster in high school with Humphrey, and it was with Nate Archibald, a guy who had silently adored her for all his life and who she had secretly carried a torch for just as long. If you asked Eric, it was a perfect match. Nate was constantly in a need of someone to give him the sense of direction, and Serena was just as desperate to be with someone who could support her unconditionally while accepting the less polished facets of her personality.

He and Chuck were been working on a project to 'clone' Victrola in London. Over time, the concept had morphed in a more original idea: the WDB, a private Gentlemen's Club, where the main source of entertainment was given by naked dancers, whose bodies were canvas for body art. Add live music, courtesy of elegantly and properly dressed pianists and violoncellists, violet tinted lighting, ceilings and walls painted to portray a starry sky, a fine and wide selection of liqueurs. The place was a perfect blend of porn and artsy. Now they were done subtly advertising among London's elite, -Chuck had sank to the depths of flirting with Marcus Beaton to get the word around the right crowd- they were scheduling a grand opening for New Year.

Plus, Blair and Chuck were at that delicate stage where they could talk each other politely again if they were forced in the same breathing space, so everyone was hoping that they would soon forget their latest faux pas and start groping behind everyone's backs.

But no, of course, life couldn't be that simple.

Six months after what Gossip Girl insisted on remembering as 'The Wild Brunch', everything had fallen apart.

Eric felt marginally guilty for having a bright future in comparison. He was seeing both a Playgirl (yeah, that's the newest gay fashion magazine) model in New York and a theatre actor during his short stays in London. No need to add that Chuck was proud his teachings were paying off.

Serena and Nate? They were broken up. Apparently it didn't bode well to put two people with commitment issues together and expect them to deal with…commitment.

Serena was currently mingling with the disgusting likes of- shudder-Carter Baizen.

Nate was moping while parading around a bisexual girl he had picked up at Victrola.

See the parallel, anyone?

Chuck and Blair? Georgina had managed to fuck that chance forever by getting knocked up.

His brother had managed to live in denial for months, even after the harpy told him she was going let their creature to live. Then there had been the paternity test and its positive result shot to the hell any possibility the youngest – for now- Bass could suppress his distress.

That announcement had required the immediate convocation of the Unjudging Breakfast Club inside 1812 for a serious Get-Smashed Session (Minus Blair for obvious reasons).

It had taken Chuck exactly 18 minutes of clipped explanations and five glasses of whiskey before the ugly truth surfaced. It didn't helped him to have the full, uncensored attention of his small, shell-shocked audience the moment he blurted :

"To make a long story short, I'm about becoming a father"

Serena's and Eric 's relentless questioning had made the rest, while Nate limited himself to nodding with a concerned expression on his pretty face and filling the Chuck's glass when it got empty.

Three hours later they were all crossing the line between tipsy conversationalists and raving drunkards.

"This is the final proof that God exists and, for some reason, intensely hates me." Chuck grumbled by the floor he was laying down on.

"I can't argue against that" Nate nodded, smiling sluggishly as he poured another shot of vodka for himself and Serena. They were comfortably sprawled on the couch, appearing very cozy and forgetful of the fact they were no longer a couple.

The blonde girl giggled hysterically, shaking her head so generically than Eric – who was sitting on the floor, cross-legged beside Chuck's still form- distractedly wondered if it would fall off her neck.

"I can't believe I'm the one who has to tell Blair. She is going to chew me out!"

Nate, who was far too well acquainted with the Waldrof approved Shoot-The-Messenger etiquette, laughed at that thought, even after her blond mane whipped his face.

Chuck sensed something in his stomach rustling at the mention of that name. Not butterflies.

He had no right to demand that Serena kept her mouth shut. It was her best-friend duty to deliver that sort of information and he wasn't interested in interferance, not in the slightest.

It wasn't like he wanted Blair back; he'd never be that stupid again. It wasn't like he could feel anything for Georgina, who was too much like him to ever tempt romantic thoughts.

That's was fine with him.

He didn't believe in love. Never did really, never will.

Blair had just been a fantasy, the pinnacle of his history as sexual conqueror, and this was probably why he had set aside the womanizing to be with her. After screwing his way inside each and every UES household, he had found refreshing the idea of someone whom only he could caress and crawl inside. Who was better fit for that role than his best friend's eternal virgin? Love was always a self-induced illusion. A fever of mind. He had bought the act just like everyone else.

Or perhaps it was just people like him and G who couldn't care properly about others. It happens when you are raised in an emotionally bare environment.

Only Blair Waldrof had had true power over him. The kind of power that would lead him to watch her while she slept, curled up against his side, looking so helpless and so… his. The kind of power that would make him admire her beauty even when she had no make up or fancy dress on, to coddle her when she was feeling down. And only she had the power to improve his mood just by having a good day, and by smiling even if it wasn't in a sex-inviting fashion.

He wished that he had never felt anything her, that she had never forced him to revaluate the basis on which he had once founded his life.

It left him with too many questions, and when she left she had taken the answers away with her.

No, he didn't want to feel that way again, not for Blair, Georgina, or anyone else. It was unhealthy to have one's wellbeing dependant on another's feelings.

A child… he had nothing to offer it.

"I can't believe I told Bart" He drawled, unwilling to concentrate on all the other stuff furiously brewing in his mind.

"You told Bart before telling us?" Eric was so surprised that he leaned in towards the other boy, trying to better study his brother's scrunched-up face and nearly fell over him

Chuck made a pained sound in his throat. "I got the call by Dr Salinger while we were having lunch. I wasn't myself. I was babbling senseless!"

Serena kept the giggling to a respectful minimum, as Nate took a thoughtful air: "I bet he never changed expression".

"Ah! " It was the only reply Chuck could concoct. There was no level of intoxication that would lower him to repeat the spiel that Bart had subjected him to, about his lack of common sense to let a lady like Blair Waldrof slip through his fingers while impregnating a certified nutcase like Georgina Sparks.

"I'm surprised you aren't arranging a convenient fall down the stairs" Eric thought out loud.

"That's exactly what Georgina said when she said me she was keeping IT" Chuck remembered, slightly confused by his own choice of words. Maybe he was no longer used to drinking this much. How unnatural. How come he never noticed?

"What have you answered?" Serena inquired, her silly drunken grin twisting in a sillier curious pout.

"That I valuated the option, but considering my luck where she is concerned, she would have cracked her skull and sent me in jail for ten years or so"

"You could still slip a pill in her glass," Nate interjected, his half-closed eyes widening a little when he realized everyone else were staring at him. "What?"

Chuck ,who had half-risen on his elbows, glared at his best friend. He was feeling a bit insulted for reasons he wouldn't consider too closely. He gave up on dealing with the new emotion altogether by steering the conversation away from it.

"She thought it was hot. Me considering that." So hot than she had offered to blow him. Wonder if sex-dependence is genetic?

"That's Georgina for you" his sister stated, sounding worrisomely caught between nostalgia and affection.

"This kid will have the worst genes ever" Eric added, glancing at Chuck for a moment to check if his brother had taken any offence.

Chuck hadn't, because rather than cussing him out, Chuck sat slowly up and grabbed nearby bottle of tequila.

"We must toast to that indisputable truth"

* * *

_Cooming Soon: An epic Waldrof meltdown, a BC confrontation... and maybe, a reunion?_

Don't hate me, once the Chair sails again, you might be happy I put you through this...


	5. Chapter 5

**Press Forward and Replay: Chapter 4 **

She had tried to repress it, forget it, replace the feeling with anger and loathing, but there was simply nothing to be done about it: Blair Waldrof missed Chuck Bass.

It wasn't just about the sex, although the memory of waking up to his hands exploring her nudity so gently when they happened to share a bed for the night was still fresh in her mind. He was still the only man she desired.

Blair had dated others (it was the least she could do to salvage her residual dignity) but her libido and her heart simply weren't into it. She had glided through dates, approaching them as a component of her routine, all too aware that there was no curling of toes, no invigorating banter, no sparkle of real attraction when their eyes met. It was strange because, in theory, her boyfriend-candidates had all she could wish for in a man: they were all handsome, respectable, well-bred, polite, dressed primly with a discreet elegance.

Just like Nate or that British Lord, they were her type of man.

Relatively flawless accessories who couldn't inspire anything inside her to go beyond few kisses.

Regardless of how much she hated second-guessing herself, Blair couldn't deny, with a sinking ache in her chest, that perhaps 'her type of man' was more of a product of her ambitions, or a decoy for her quest to be perfect, than an embodiment of what she really wanted or needed.

Because the only man who had made her to feel alive had nothing in common with her supposed ideal, except one thing: he would sometimes look at her with such a naked, raw adoration, than it used to steal her breath away.

It was depressing, but as previously stated, it wasn't all about the physical. It was that possibility to be bitchy and authentically mean with Chuck when she was pissed off for reasons that had nothing to do with him. She would lash out and he would mock her and provoke her until they both exploded, giving back as bad as he got until awesome sex resolved their strife. They could hurt each other ruthlessly, but it felt amazing when they eventually shed their layers of defence and pride and pushed each other more closely together.

Nate and Serena made a lasting impression of a gaping fish at her supposed cruelty, then did their best to come out as the mature or morally superior ones, leaving her even more unsettled than she originally was.

So yes, she missed that Mother-chucker, but she had realized it far too late.

**Spotted : S,N,C,E and G having breakfast after a private feast at the Palace. Have N&S reunited? Are C&G on verge of making it official? Be aware New York. A new royal family might be rising. **

Blair was in Yale when she received the text.

The picture showed Serena with her brothers and ex-boyfriend, all sporting dark sunglasses and classic hangover signs. Georgina sat between Chuck and Serena, standing out among the little group for appearing so much more fresh and rested.

It didn't surprise Blair that Chuck and Eric were in Manhattan, because they had been pursuing their business venture, two fake aliases following most of their courses. When you are part of Skull and Bones, you can dare that and so much more. She would never allow _that_ if they had still been dating. Only because that Bass-hole happened to be sharp and smart, enough than learning came easily to him and lessons bored him. It wasn't an excuse to spit on his education. He could be brilliant if he applied himself, instead of stupidly wasting his potential!

But nevermind that. It wasn't her concern anymore.

Serena was supposed to be at the Brown. What were Serena and Nate doing there?

How could they mingle with Georgina after the hell that insane bitch had unleashed last time she had played the nostalgic friend card?

Something serious had to be going on.

Blair didn't waste any time in phoning her surrogate sister.

"S!"

Sweet-Cheery-Blair-Voice kicked in, an universal sign of trouble for anyone who truly knew her.

"B, listen…"

"Since when are you all chummy with she-devil?"

"It wasn't like that. Georgina dropped by this morning. We had spent the night all drinking in 1812.A night of fun, you know. It's been awhile since we had a proper get-together, with university and everything else"

Blair tapped her fingers impatiently on her desk. There was something about her blonde friend's plaintive explanation that frustrated her.

"What are you even doing in Manhattan?"

"…"

"Are you there?"

Blair heard Serena taking a deep breath on the other side and grew concerned. She had a bad feeling about this.

"Yes, I just… look, Blair I really wanted to tell you in person, but I think it would be worse if you learnt it by Gossip Girl and Georgina could be just that nuts to tip the bitch off herself- "

"Serena!- Blair cut the other girl off, a fake laughter hovering on her lips - Stop stalling and just come out with it. Chuck and I are so last-season! I promise nothing that he has done will tilt my world off its axis."

Lies, all lies. Blair knew it, Serena knew it and Blair knew that Serena knew it. It was pure Upper East side etiquette: always conceal your truths even when they are very obvious and natural.

"He got Georgina pregnant."

_Georgina is pregnant. Georgina is pregnant. Georgina is pregnant._

The words filled her head until Blair felt it swelling. It was good luck that she was already sitting.

"Georgina- was it always been so difficult to articulate that particular name?- is a slut"

"Blair…"

But there was nothing to be said, so Serena let that one word trail off, useless and pitiful.

"Come on, how can you be sure? I bet _she_ doesn't even know who the father is"

Chuck had to be overjoyed. Take that, Bass-tard. It will teach you to mess with pedigreed shanks.

" They had a paternity test done. It's-"

Blair frowned. Weren't you to supposed to wait a lot before you could take a prenatal test? How long was been it going on?

"How along is she?"

"Eleven weeks."

Two months and half. It Probably wasn't even his. Excluding that memorable lapse at Victrola, Nate had assured her that Chuck and Georgina had not began fooling around until 3 months after. It was not like Blair had asked, of course. It was only that dear Nate delighted in babbling about casual, unimportant facts which did not concern him. Or her, for what it was worth.

Was it really only seven months that she and Chuck parted? To Blair it felt like a lifetime ago. Like if she was a fat, old woman.

Serena filled the silence with words, a senseless string of details Blair didn't care about, yet memorized anyway.

"They have done a CVS. It means that the doctor has extracted coronial villi from the placenta. Chuck wanted it was someone on his pay-list because he doesn't trust her, but it's his. If it helps, he was devastated by the news."

"I don't see why it should help. I must go now."

Steely and cold, she could be proud of herself. She hang up on a last muttering of her name. Blair Waldrof didn't need anybody's pity.

On its will, her cell fled from her hands to her bed.

Her life was a farce. She had spent a decade holding on a puppy-love, preening over a guy who had not only had taken her for granted, but wasn't ever capable of passion. So when real passion had knocked on her door, she had rudely sent it on its way, mistaking it for lust.

She used to dream about marrying her childhood sweetheart, a sweet boy who would love her forever because he had already loved her since forever. About them losing their virginity to each other, getting married fresh after finishing college, having a blue-eyed son who would resemble his father and a daughter to groom in her image. Except that Nate had never truly wanted her, and she was been so infatuated with the concept of forever that she had not realized that their relationship relied less on romantic feelings and more on the festering of deeply-rooted insecurities.

Chuck Bass clashed with her old fantasies, but it never seemed to matter. He was a category of eternity she had not learnt to define.

Georgina was _his_ first kiss, _his_ first time, the future mother of _his _first …

Of course he _had _to marry the whore now. It was how this sort of accident was handled in their world. There was no other way.

Georgina-fucking-Sparks was living a cheap version of her fairytale.

What a delightful irony.

Blair's gaze fell on a chiselled glass cup on her desk. It was a beautiful, delicate piece of art Roman had gave for last Christmas.

She usually liked Roman and his guilty presents quite well, but not today. Today she could not stand the hypocrisy of neither.

_Effeminate Father-stealer of a man. _

The cup crashed on the floor, shattering in thousand pieces, some shards bouncing on her ankles and back down, between her feet.

It was very gratifying.

She eyed with interest the small, low vase with white Orchids on her nightstand. The composition looked pretentious, graceless.

Blair threw it easily against the wall. The cash was violent, but almost elegant. It suited her mood, and gave her some relief.

_Whorgina Bass_ had a wonderful sound.

Congratulations, Charles, you just signed away a future of sanity. Even God wouldn't save your leacherous soul now. Fuck off.

Books. Her room was stocked with books. Books and notebooks and pens. Certainly, what else had she?

Blair begun grabbing the most heavy tomes and launching them with all the strength she possessed. They landed aimlessly against the wall or just the floor.

Her arms hurt.

She kicked a book that just happened to end under her foot, hard.

Now her right foot hurt too.

Stupid Basses. The world could do without one more of them and most particularly it could do without a Bass-Sparks breed.

"Blair? Are you all right? "

Monique, a girl who shared her apartment on campus, was on her bedroom threshold. She had trite concern plastered on her pretty face framed by disgusting natural blonde ringlets.

Couldn't anyone knock anymore?

"Get-Out! And close that door!"

Blair hardly needed to yell it twice. The poor thing was terrified.

What did she expect? That Blair Waldrof would curl up in a corner and confess to a simple nobody that she was having a meltdown because a nutty slut had plagiarized her dreams?

Please!

She was not giving Georgina the satisfaction of eloping with her man, even if she had to plot and scheme to her deathbed, because if Chuck did belong with anyone, it was NOT that crack whore.

She would give him a piece of her mind too! How did he dare to do this to her?

She had thought they were been moving carefully toward … well, a complete and functional conversation when they met on campus or back to home, but in Chuck-and-Blair-verse that amounted to … preliminaries for future sex. Didn't _any_ kind of contact between them culminate in sex, sooner or later?

And he had to go and ruin it!

That Basshole!

-----

The late morning after, Chuck was opening the door of his suite to her. He was still in his pyjamas and judging by his tussled hair, he had just tumbled out his bed. Once a late riser, always a late riser. He better be alone or she would, most probably, turn on her heels and leave.

He appeared puzzled to find her here, but Blair couldn't blame him. Even she was surprised by her own resolution.

"Blair?"

His eyes questioned hers for a moment before taking in her figure, shamelessly going up and down her fully and primly clothed body. If she had not known she looked perfect, she would question her appearance because his visage –a bit more open than it usually was when he was alert- reflected an hint of doubt.

Chuck was, in fact, thinking she looked a touch too perfect, with her glossy brown curls spilling from her French knot and her demure grey dress. Blair always looked at her most flawless when she was about to wage war. Strange that it was the first thought that flitted through his mind when he saw her standing in front of him.

"Chuck." She inclined her head expectantly as she greeted him back, a Southern Belle smile complimenting her dulcet tones.

Amazingly enough, it was all it took to be let in.

Inwardly, he was cringing, because Serena had to have told her.

_Thanks so much for the alert signal, sis. _

"You sister recently told me the most disturbing news."

"Did you come all the way from Yale to congratulate or to mock?"

"After the Antichrist' coming was announced, I wanted to check in if the Apocalypse was on its way. I figured that you would know"

"It humbles me that your opinion of me is so elevated"

" I'm shocked to learn you know the meaning of the word 'humble'. But let's not get sidetracked: just tell me when Serena will be in need of her bridesmaid dress. I'm sure my mother would love design something exclusively for her."

The stark contrast between the sugar coating of her question and the venom in her gaze made an odd impression on him. What had Serena told her?

"I don't follow you"

"It's called marriage Bass. Even you have attended many. It's usually celebrated before starting a family"

" Do you think I would marry Georgina?"

Blair shrugged stiffly in front of his confused face.

"She is hosting the next Bass-pod generation, isn't she? It's just the proper thing to do. I'm sure Bart will respect you so much more for it."

Her smile had something sharp and her voice contained more saccharine than was psychologically healthy.

Her whole posture was so rigid that it had to be painful.

Her reaction had a puzzling effect on him: it made him to feel powerful, vaguely guilty, elated, freaked out, amused, and relieved all at the same time.

_When in doubt, smirk and state the obvious at your most sarcastic._

" I'm Chuck Bass, when have you ever known me to do the proper thing? "

She crossed her arms before her chest, a gesture dripping more in defensiveness than annoyance. It dawned on him that Blair was upset with him to a completely unprecedented degree. Was Blair … _jealous_? Seriously, enough-to-kill-at-the-drop-of-a-hat jealous? His stomach flip-flopped.

He took in her hostile stiffness and cold glare, considering them more seriously, from a whole another angle. She _was_ jealous!

His smirk grew more natural as he sauntered closer to her.

"Green is hot on you- he purred in her ear- and I would love to help you to unravel all this unnecessary tension"

Blair shoved his hand off her shoulder, violently. Her wide brown eyes threatened a thousand different kinds of murderer.

It was very attractive.

"If you think I would allow you to touch me when you have probably screwed Whoregina's brains out just hours ago then you are delusional !"

"Would it make a difference if I assured you I've not touched her in days?"

"No!"

She was downright furious and she wasn't even bothering to hide her real feelings, for once. Her obviousness was intoxicating and it got him higher than any drug he had ever tried in his wasted youth.

Blair, on her side, was having trouble stifling all her contradicting impulses. Her emotions kept spinning out of her control, changing with quicksilver rapidity. She wanted slap him until his arrogantly attractive face was blue, to claim him until he remembered he was been hers and hers only forever, to rip his balls off, to beg him to not leave her, to confess that she loved him, and to accuse him of having never loved her.

She breathed in hard: it unnerved her that Chuck was eyeing her with such a transparent enjoyment of her distress. Her heart was on her sleeve and he was making no move to pick it up.

"After all we have gone through, how can you do this?"

" Do what, Blair? "

_Being with her. __Not being with me_.-She thought, but pressed her lips together to close the weakness of that admission in.

"Being with a psycho."

Chuck sighed, his expression losing its initial smugness in favour of a bland annoyance. Of course that Blair wouldn't admit that she was here to negotiating a third round of their relationship. Even after he went so far to show his continued interest in her, she was determined to make her indignation known on the account of his friends' past difficulties with Georgina.

"Do you want know why has Georgina gotten me? She saw something she wanted and went after it. She has not waited around expecting me to give it or to pressure her to take it. You just… let me go. Just as each and every other time. Except that I don't usually accept it, you fight me, I insist until you _generously_ give in. It's a fucking boring dance. "

Blair snorted. " Poor Charles! Should I have ran after you? "

"Of course not! We all know who is entitled to do the chasing, here, and it's not you! "

" The only chasing you have been doing lately is after Georgina's cunt!"

It was the most vulgar thing he had heard to come from his Ice Queen's mouth. They were basically hissing in each other's face now.

Chuck had to clench his fists until his knuckles were white so as to not grab her shoulders and back her against the wall.

It didn't suit to him to always be the one who needed the most, who cared the most. Blair gave up on him so easily… regardless of how much she claimed he had hurt her or offended her, she was always the one who came out their skirmishes the less damaged. He wasn't going to get tangled in her again unless he could believe she valued him as much he valued her.

"So?"

"_So?!_"

"You never gave me a decent reason not to!"

"Have lost you mind? There are so many than- "

"Only one would matter."

Blair froze, a scared little rabbit before a desperately hungry fox. Every one of her instincts was screaming at her to get away, and yet every fibre of her heart was obliging her stay put.

He was so close that she could have kissed him. She _wanted_ to kiss him, but she knew Chuck would only push her away, unless she could surrender what was left of her dignity to him.

"I want you to be with me instead. – she uttered it softly, like a secret, leaning in so their foreheads could touch- Because I love you and you can't say it's not real because I'm sure-"

Chuck cut her off with a kiss uncharacteristically gentle, slow but possessive too, tasting like regret and wonder.

There were those three words, eight letters which had no plausibility to him. He had never told them, never heard them as they were aimed to him until Blair had dared using them to placate him, months ago. Then, all he had felt was cold. But now that he could sense she truly meant them, it was so very different. He wanted to kiss her, to possess her until he could capture what she felt inside of him.

This all-consuming longing, this warming hope laced with hunger, was it love?

Blair parted her mouth from his reluctantly, panting. They were both nearly out of breath.

"Do you still… feel the same about me? Nothing has changed?"

How could she kiss him like that and yet sound so insecure? Believing that Georgina could ever replace her, when she knew him so well?

In his head there was Blair Waldrof and then 'everyone else', existing on two utterly different planes, and it wasn't a truth he could change or rationalize. He had tried. Often.

So Chuck drew her closer, his hands caressing her back soothingly, his heated gaze enrapturing hers.

"I love you "

He echoed her previous statement, unfaltering. The words felt hollow on his lips, like he was still a stranger to their meaning, but he couldn't care about that while Blair's beautiful, flushed visage transfigured completely under his eyes.

Her features seemed to twist imperceptibly, then a happy grin graced her full, pink lips and she… _glowed_. It was like watching the sun coming through clouds: he could not look away. He was mesmerized, startled that he had the capability to produce such a radical change in her.

Lingering, wet pecks soon rained all over his face, her arms surrounded his shoulders, her breasts were pressing against his chest … suddenly Chuck couldn't think straight anymore.

He managed to drag her toward the bedroom, holding on her waist all the time, meeting her mouth harshly for another kiss.

They were laying naked on his bed when she spoke to him again: "Tell me I'm still the only one you want"

"You are the only one I've ever really wanted"

Chuck was almost certain this one counted as a lie, but it mattered little. He couldn't get enough of this glowing, needy, happy Blair. Her willing vulnerability was as precious and addictive as anything he had experienced in his life: he wanted more of it.

He watched her glazed gaze light up from his words and it did something to him that he couldn't explain. It was almost like he was fucking a different woman, and he could not figure out how the sight of another's happiness could affect him so irreparably, pleasing him so deeply.

He rediscovered her body patiently but relentlessly, placing a trail of kisses from underneath her chin to her navel, his hands preceding his mouth by cupping, squeezing and rubbing her flesh gently. He took his time to gauge her reaction to his each move, to savour how his faintest touch on her skin sent her shivering, sighing, whimpering.

Blair had always been a participative lover, but never quite so openly responsive. All out of courtesy for those little three words.

She was more his than she was ever been, and he had yet to enter her. It felt so surreal.

Chuck was nearly tempted to ask her to repeat _that_, to see if it would upset him similarly too.

Her palm slid smoothly on the small of his back, her hips rising as she wordlessly invited him in.

"I love you" Blair repeated as he plunged inside her, and she said it again and again, composing an unfamiliar litany to accompany his thrusts. Almost as if she had yet to convince him of the truth of her intentions.

She should have to know he didn't need any words, and those particular three less than others. Once was enough. Yet, listening to her was disturbing and the knot in his throat would not be swallowed down.

It drove him breathless and wild, so much that he almost kissed her only to shut her up, but his mind was growing more and more hazy by the second and he could not hold onto the thought.

He could not hold onto much other than Blair, the all-encompassing sensation of her smell, of her sweaty body and –god forbid- her whispered _love_ clasping him and welcoming him home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Press Forward and Replay: Chapter 5**

Silk sheets stuck pleasantly to her sweat soaked skin, and each inch of her limbs ached languorously. Her mind was adrift between drowsiness and the aftershock of very intense, fatiguing pleasure. Lying on her side, Blair thought she had every right to feel icky or self-conscious.

Instead she felt truly content for the first time in months. She felt safe, treasured, cherished…beloved because Chuck had finally admitted that he loved her and she had finally allowed herself to recognize that she needed him for no other reason than the fact she loved him.

It was wonderful, it was glorious, it was … better than perfect. They _loved_ each other and nothing would change that. What could possibly be better than knowing that?

Besides learning that Georgina had overdosed in some cheap corner of …well, maybe that was pushing it a little. Or not.

"Blair?"

Chuck's visage, relaxed but inexpressive, was sinking into his pillow. His eyes were closed, but when he opened them on her, his gaze was surprisingly keen.

"Mh?"

"Can you really put up with this?"

She smiled a little, teasingly "I've already had a two-years-worth sample experience"

Huffing, her boyfriend didn't look nearly as satisfied with her reply as she hadhoped. "I meant staying with me when I'm having a kid with someone else. It won't exactly benefit your social standing and we all know how _fundamental _that's for you"

Blair scowled, uncertain if she liked how unsubtly he had just mocked the word '_fundamental_'.

"Won't you even try to get _her_ to abort? "

Chuck's mouth thinned like he was displeased, but he said nothing.

She sat up, incredulity swatting away that precious feeling of inner peace which had pervaded every cell of hers only a moment ago.

"Come on Chuck, we all know how Georgina is. What will you do, close her up until she has the baby? Because that might be the only way to keep her healthy and crack-free."

He breathed in a bit more deeply, staring straight ahead. Why was not he looking at her, anymore?

"She is been clean for almost one year."

Rising her eyebrows suggestively, Blair scooted over to get back his vision range.

"But she still drinks, doesn't she? Do you know in how many differently deformed shapes and various degrees of mental retardation your potential kid might come in? No? Check Google for Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome. You will have fun."

He didn't bother to repress his eye-rolling. "Georgina is a sociopath, but not a stupid one. I doubt she is more willing than I'm to take care of a three headed monster. "

But now they were broaching the subject, he had to consider that a bit of prudence couldn't be amiss. He would ask Serena to oblige her auntie duties and orbit closer to good old Georgie.

Ugh, why were they talking about this, again?

He did know perfectly well that Georgina Sparks was the worst choice he could ever have ever done as a breeding partner and there was no need for Blair to remind him of it..

He didn't want to think too hard about how insane everything was.

He and Georgina having a child. Together. She, who had always been numb inside and desperate to feel something- be it through alcohol, drugs, orgies, multiple interpretations of the most desperate roles- and he, who had spent most of his life in rampant denial of his emotions.

Yeah, maybe insane was just the word for it.

Noticing that Blair was strangely silent, Chuck turned to look at her, finding his lover watching him with a guarded expression.

She was been taking in his last phrasing, taken aback by the meaning he had, perhaps unconsciously, implied. "You speak like you want this child"

"I cannot stop Georgina from keeping it, if that's her choice."

There was just a hint of defensiveness in his reply, and he was very aware of it. He couldn't deny that, however wrong and dangerous the situation was, a part of him was accepting it a bit too readily. He had never committed to anything and anybody except Blair and even that had been a struggle at first.

His avoidance instincts were kicking in, sure, but he also knew that, once the brat was out of the oven, he would do his best to play daddy decently. There was something enticing in the concept of someone believing in him, belonging to him.

"You _can_, you simply don't _want_ to."

She didn't mean to sound like a bitch, but she could not understand why he was acting so blasé about the possibility of becoming a father. It was not the Chuck Bass she knew, dead set on avoiding self-sacrifice in any measure .

His handsome features hardened, reflecting only a determined standoffishness. " Don't ask me to become Bart."

That was the one thing he wouldn't do in order to be with her. He couldn't cast his flesh and blood aside because of her issues. He had spent too many years hating Bart, and yet kissing up to the cold bastard because despite the loathing between them, that was all the family he had.

Blair inclined her head, absorbing his words with a focus that he wasn't sure he liked. He didn't want to know what a secret meaning she was dissecting out of it.

She nibbled on her bottom lip, in an unaware sexy gesture.

"That wasn't what I meant. I just… expected to see you freaking out and fighting the issue each inch of the way."

Specially considering Georgina was involved. He _did_ used to loath the psycho, after all. But Blair refused to bring _that _up: she had already exploited enough the role of the crazy and desperate ex-girlfriend since she had pushed herself inside his suite.

"You sure assume a lot, for someone who isn't been around." Chuck sneered, anything but mollified.

Wasn't just nice how _everyone_ were _constantly _expecting the worst of him? He could be a petty and selfish person, but that didn't mean he was unable or unwilling to take care of his. He _always_ took care of his, even when they weren't exactly brimming with gratitude over his kindness. Didn't his behaviour toward Serena and Nate demonstrate it?

"Whose fault was that?" Blair sneered back fiercely as she wrapped his sheets around her upper vulnerability she had so openly displayed just seconds ago was gone.

Yet, a fiery Blair was always a priceless vision.

"Yours"Chuck flung back, smirking smugly as he leant back into the pillows.

"_Mine?_"

Remembering how genuinely he had missed the adrenaline rush of their verbal sparring, he nodded, very well aware that his nonchalance would only lead her faster and further toward explosion.

"Yours. If you came sooner-"

Blair punched his shoulder before he could finish, but he had not the chance to yelp in mock pain, because her fingers were already threading through his hair and yanking his head back viciously.

Her lips crushed his angrily, and he opened his mouth to let her invade it, enjoying her demanding forwardness.

He had no idea of how he had managed so long without the glorious sensation of Blair on him because, as he gave in the urge to get his hand tangled in her silken tresses, pressing her closer and kissing her back deeply, ravenously, he knew nothing else could quite compare.

Her body stretched over his, hot skin on hot naked skin, and their kisses grew more and more rushed until they were both breathless and light-headed.

She pulled back with a moan, her chest heaving painfully while she tried to calm down her furiously racing heart. Looking into her heavy-lidded brown eyes, Chuck found no anger, only elation.

The mercurial change of mood had them sharing a chuckle and a softer kiss, then Blair's head hid in the crook of Chuck's neck. This was exactly what she had missed and feared of having irrevocably lost. That elusive sensation of belonging and being real.

"Wow. It seems I've interrupted a good morning feast."

Blair's heart skipped a beat as that unfortunately well-known, snarky voice cut in. Maybe if she closed her eyes and counted up to ten, she could rewind the last six seconds and pretend Georgina Sparks had _not _just intruded.

Wait, did that mean the She-devil had her set of keys for 1812? Chuck had given _his suite's keys _to thatschizophrenic excuse for a female?! What the hell?!

Blair jumped up, shocked and vaguely disgusted, holding the sheets to her chest as she turned around, adjusting her body to allow Chuck to rise too.

A quick glance to the disturbed expression on his face sufficed to reassure her that he was surprised with that inopportune morning visit every bit as much she was.

On his part, Chuck was thinking his morning was growing even more surreal than it had started off: Georgina stood tall and proud in his bedroom, apparently comfortable and gleeful in watching not-so-covertly Blair straddling him.

Plus, Blair wouldn't budge from her position on top of him, evidently meaning to use the occasion to 'mark her territory'. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the consideration, but Georgina could get unpredictable when her so called feelings were offended and he had no intention of risking a nuclear war. He hadn't nearly enough energy to muster a sufficient store of anger to cover the surprise: "What are you doing here?"

The newcomer swayed closer to the bed, lifting her sunglasses over her head to better enjoy the view, smirking widely despite theinner urge to gag in her mouth.

It was a small consolation that she could clearly see how uncomfortable the Ice Queen was becoming with her presence.

It was unavoidable, really: in her sleeveless, shimmering-grey techno-fabric dress which clung to her slender, long-limbed figure so closely Georgina looked stunning and even a little intimidating to a naked, off-guard and vulnerable Blair.

"I wanted to surprise you."

The first brunette pouted, unnerving both the lovers.

Reining in his contrition, Chuck replied patronizingly: "I can imagine that. I wondered how you got in?"

Georgina flipped a strand of her long hair over her bony shoulder, dissimulating with a flamboyant attitude her bitter satisfaction about what she was about to say. "Oh, that. I and Dexter got friendly ages ago. He had this very dirty fantasy… "

"About which I would prefer very much not knowing."

Chuck interrupted forcefully with a thoroughly revolted sneer. In fact, he barely avoided shuddering in revulsion at the images filling his head so ungraciously. It was one thing acknowledging that he and Georgina weren't exclusive (although he had to admit that their adulthood had turned far less promiscuous than their youth) but it was whole another matter knowing that he was eating from the same plate than his hotel doorman. _Eww. _

_Jealous?- _Georgina almost slipped, but contained her hit of vicious exaltation, settling on a simple shrug: if she was going to win the game, she had to play her hand coolly. "Just don't blame too much his black-stud ways. It's not his fault he didn't notice I borrowed your keys after we… finished. There only so much you can ask of your elders when it comes to stamina."

Chuck snorted, taking a mental note to get Dexter on Bart's black book, thus eliminating the issue of firing the doorman over the real reason and being coerced to explain himself in front of his family. There was no way he was going to admit sharing with their hired personnel.

"Now you told your piece- Blair retorted haughtily, extremely displeased with the twist the confrontation had taken, not mention her paranoia that it could have some sort of effect on her maybe-boyfriend- could you leave? We would like be alone and free to continue where we left off."

For once, she was not bothered to keep appearances up. It was very invigorating finally being as impolite she felt like, especially since the recipient of her blunt rudeness was her archenemy.

A still beat thickened the air around them, before Georgina pasted on a smouldering grin, something wild behind those blue irises flashing and freezing colder, menacing.

An eyebrow arched proudly. "Sure. I would hate to prevent glaciers from melting. It's such a _rarity_."

And upon that glorious exit line, Georgina waved her hand in mock salute and turned on her heels to leave the room, tucking away for future, private gloating a last glimpse of her rival' mouth hanging open in speechless outrage.

Sighing out of defeat and resignation, Chuck gently but firmly disentangled himself from Blair to follow after his unexpected guest. By the time he reached her, her determined strut had already brought her close to the elevator.

"Georgina"

He called her back by his suite's door, all too aware that his nakedness was an insuperable inconvenient when it came to chase after a blistering female.

She turned toward him and, contrarily to his previsions, came back on her steps calmly to face him.

Regardless of her cool façade, he wasn't stupid or hopeful enough to believe she was truly so accepting of his reunion with Blair. Territoriality aside, there was whole a load of history that didn't promised well for Waldorf-Sparks collisions of any kind.

"Regrets, already?" Georgina snickered, oozing fake cheer.

Another, prolonged sigh shuddered through his lips. "Don't go out of here keeping grudges. I wasn't going to hide it. It was an improvised reconciliation."

"I supposed so- she nodded, appearing not excessively interested or disinterested with the information- but it doesn't bode any better when it comes to me and your ice princess sharing. We are just _not_ compatible."

"I wasn't going suggest that."

Georgina shrugged, still relatively serene and collected.

"All the better. Our arrangement was fun as it lasted, but I'm sure we can all easily move on from here without any bad blood between us."

"Right- Chuck acquiesced, sceptical but also somehow content in front of such complacency- Does this change anything about… "

He refused to finish the thought, for pathetic it was, and just did a vague gesture with his right hand.

She cocked her head aside, looking straight in his eyes like if he was a new breed of a particularly stupid animal and she had expected better, then flashed him a wicked grin. "I _told_ you the pregnancy has nothing to do with you…well, aside from the obvious."

The lie rolled off her lips easy and petulant, although Georgina was inwardly congratulating herself. To think harder, it wasn't a complete lie either. More like a good natured deception.

Genuine confusion seemed to overtake Chuck's beautiful features for a moment and she knew that what was going to ask afterwards was something that had never stopped nagging at him.

"So what it is abou ?"

He questioned her almost saucily, and it was monstrously natural pick on the _timid_ curiosity underneath the bravado. Hugh, what was the world coming to? Old age was softening all of them beyond repair.

Georgina rolled her eyes heavenward for dramatic effect and surprised herself by coming up with an excuse so perfect than it tasted ridiculously like a truth, even on _her_ tongue.

"Don't you get? For people like you and me, this might be that one, precious occasion to be part of something good and clean."

His visage morphed in a blank, unblinking mask until he shook himself and looked away, nodding and dismissing the haunting concept for further, private contemplation. She had the grace to turn away from him mere seconds before he shut the door in her face. Backtracking toward the elevator, Georgina allowed her conciliating appearance to disintegrate. She wouldn't think about what and whom she was leaving Chuck to, or it would become too much to contain the boiling wrath.

She had known this could happen, so while it could be unpleasant and irksome to be proved right, her final victory wasn't necessarily any more distant or less unavoidable than it was ever been.

Hell, it could be fun to play longer … and Plan B would crush sweet, delicate Snow White so much more in the long run. In the meantime, there was a Serena to take back under her dark wings.

"Did you sooth her ego?"

Blair sniggered, arms crossed protectively infront of her nude breasts. Her companion sat comfortably on the edge of the bed, darting her an incredulous look.

"I think so. "

"Wonderful. I feel _rejuvenated_."

"Blair, regardless of how we might like it to be different, I cannot shut her out of my life anymore. We have known her long enough to guess that she will make things as complicated as she can, if for nothing more than her deviated sense of humour. Let's at least try to not invite her to plot our death. "

Blair gave in a startled, sarcastic bout of laughter. "Playing nice will _definitely_ stop her! "

She felt slightly nauseous, and it was horrifying to realize that although Chuck had just made clear how he felt about her, in both magical words and blood-heating actions, it did nothing to extirpate her seething jealousy. She couldn't keep him apart from Georgina and it was wrong that she felt so strongly about it. He loved her, not that slut, and it would have to be enough.

So why was it not?

Chuck shifted over, his fingers playing on her cheek to bring her closer until his mouth brushed hers.

She allowed him to kiss her closed lips slowly, placatingly until the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach died, consumed by a different, better type of ache. It was only then that she opened her mouth to his.

The next moment, a loose recollection of something he had asked her before they were interrupted flitted through her increasingly lust-addled mind. She drew back, licking her bruised lips in front of a scowling Chuck.

"You devastated my reputation so many times and in so many ways that you can't seriously think I care about that more than I care about you."

Put like that, it felt quite insulting to her ears. How could he believe that she valued their relationship less than her good name? She had just confessed how much she cared about him! Did he think she was stupid, coming to him and setting her feelings out for potential humiliation, without thinking of any consequences? Why was he staring at her like she was out of her mind?

"Fine"

Did he looked… embarrassed? Lost? Shy? Was it so wrong that she felt so very, very good about it? Her heart was… soaring. It was so cute that she was tempted to pet him. Magnanimously, she kissed him instead. She savoured the feel of her lips massaging his, of his tongue caressing hers, of her body instinctively, instantly melting against his. Of his hand brushing her tangled hair off her shoulder and rubbing lingeringly her skin down from her nape to her collarbone to her arm.

Her wonder for all they were able to generate together never grew old. When Chuck kissed her like that, touched her like that, there was no space left for doubts and insecurities. She just felt too good, so alive and more whole. She felt that anything was possible. It was only when they were apart than that strength abandoned her. She wouldn't let go of it again.

Georgina's apartment in Soho was a rarely utilized refuge, furnished with an impersonal, Spartan elegance which spoke of its owner unwillingness to hold onto material mementos.

Rush through the day, don't look back, dive in if something feels good- those were her only principles. Georgina Sparks moved too fast to stay anywhere for too long, and those places she inhabited almost by accident, be they houses or flats, rarely sported signs of her personality or history. They were never home, only sanctuaries where she could crash to regroup her mind when she was sick of men or needed to lay out particularly complicated plots.

Yet, here and there little traces could be found, a few insignificant trinkets that she carried along her wanderings across the world. They weren't all well-liked reminders, but they took her back to who she was whenever she risked forgetting.

Inside her bedroom's drawer, there was a picture of a five years old Georgina, all white frills and braided hair, a yet naïve smile on her lips, plus six shots that she and Charlie had taken of each other to commemorate the first time they got stoned, an old article quoting briefly that two nameless, drunk adolescent heiresses -she and Serena obviously- had been bailed out of jail for vandalism.

The sitting room's wall clock was something she had brought in Amsterdam, during a three week vacation she had indulged into after that awful camp. She had gone there to get caught and lost once more in every vice she had missed.

An ashtray she had nicked from the Somophore year was on her nightstand …Serena used to have a matching napkin holder, while Chuck had walked away with a shot glass, like the pretentious asshole he was. Only Blair had cowered out the dare, and the weight of her silent , glowering disapproval had coaxed sweet Nathaniel to back down as well .

Blair Waldrof had always been a spoilsport…yet that night had been quite pleasant. Georgina had the sweetest memory of a certain cocky Basstard fingering her under the table while Natie blushed profusely trying to look anywhere else and the other girls paid the bathroom a visit. She had stared straight at the blonde boy the entire time, in part to anger _her_ Charlie, in part to embarrass their innocent-looking voyeur by catching him each time he dared to glance at her horny expression.

Good, old days.

How could Chuck having gone from mocking Nate Archibald's weakness to doormat-ing for the ice queen?

Imagining the sort of reunion those two were probably hell-bent on right now was giving her a powerful, furious migraine. Still, she could not keep the disgusting images at bay.

Georgina Sparks LOATHED defeat, temporary or not.

She had curled up on her sofa, eyes shut tightly and gritted her teeth. Closed curtains darkened the room, butthe absence of light wasn't placating her nerves, and she felt so restless than she had to force herself into immobility so as not to burst.

She _wouldn't_ drink or use drugs.

That little parasite growing inside her was taking over her life, and she loathed it for that. Better IT brought her to victory, or she would become royally pissed.

Accidentally, her hands brushed her stomach. It had to be a trick of her mind, but for a moment she would swear she could hear the foetus' heartbeat loud in her ears.

It made her nauseous. Or perhaps it was the nausea playing games with her senses. Either way, pregnancies were masochistic business. And she didn't mean that in the most pleasurable meaning of the word.

Fucking hormones.

She thanked a God she didn't believed in when a bell rang at her door, announced her long overdue guest had finally reached her. She _needed_ release, damn, and not the kind that came from an extenuating sex-marathon with random bulky strangers, but the kind that she could obtain by bending and twisting while receiving back only barely concealed adoration. That was exactly what her dear friend would provide.

Added bonus: Charlie was bound to be pissed as the hell.

With that happy thought, Georgina turned the lights on and stalked toward the door.

"Hey" her guest grinned somewhat shyly. He lived in the neighbourhood, and it wasn't going to be the first or the second time they played a little (although it was more exact saying she played with him and he allowed her more or less willingly) but he was always uncertain about the game's rules about the beginning of their encounters.

With good reason, because he was not handsome or excessively charming and Georgina despised his modest fashion sense just as much his conceited self-righteousness.

It didn't mean that she didn't find those little faults endearing: they made him so much more fun to pick apart.

The man in front of her was not very self-aware, but he was soft. Good. And he was been the Serena's _first love_. Wasn't it sweet that Georgina was just naturally suited to control him so completely?

She didn't deign to respond his juvenile greeting with anything other than a roll of her eyes up and silently let him in.

"You've never called me to your home before"

He sounded awkward , but his gaze followed her, drank in her presence with a hopeful light.

Poor Danny, doomed by his penchant for getting attached to girls he couldn't save.

Georgina grinned impishly.

"I never bring my men home. You are an exception."

She didn't bring _anyone_ home, _ever_. Not because she particularly minded but because there was usually no purpose. Georgina liked to assert herself into other people's existences, and that could be better accomplished by imposing in their homes.

"Because I've some dirt for you" She continued, enjoying the way his smile dimmed and his eyes darted downward. Nothing like crushing a puppy-eyed suitor to lift her spirits.

Her Cheshire Cat grin gave him cold shivers, but also got him hot. At that moment, Dan was sure that being infatuated with Georgina Sparks was the most detrimental experience for his mental health. Yet, there was nothing to be done about it. She was his muse, his addiction, ironically enough: the only times he wrote something real anymore was when he felt compelled to get their time together on paper. She could be his very antithesis, but she drew him in like no other woman had never done.

Not even Serena Van Der Woodsen, his once dream girl, or Vanessa Abrahams, his first love. He had respected and loved Vanessa with a naiveté and a purity of feeling that only a boy-child could experience; Serena he had loved with a passion which cared little about logic, yet he had never completely respected her.

Georgina had managed to leave both her predecessors in the dust: he didn't understand her, but he longed desperately to, he loathed her actions, he was disgusted by her casual cruelty… yet he could never hate _her_. He was fascinated by her chameleonic capacities, by her ruthless attitude. There was a fierceness about her that stopped him from looking down on her like he had done to Blair Waldrof in past. It made no sense: Dan knew that Georgina Sparks was dangerous, a very despicable human being. Still, all what he wanted was for her to allow him to love her.

"I'm pregnant"

His heart froze.

"It, it isn't…."

She laughed in his face, turning her back on him and plopping down on her sofa.

"Not yours, _Daniel_"

"Are you certain? I mean, there 's no chance it might be?"

He cringed internally at how shark-like her grin became, and he tensed in anticipation of the next cruelty to slide out of that beautiful mouth. Was it pathetic that, he could still noticehow alluring her large, pale eyes were in their dark coldness?

"Please, if I thought the child had a slim chance of being yours, I would have aborted it already. It's Chuck's. "

Now Dan wanted to puke. Georgina was not his, and that hurt enough. But at least before, it was comforting knowing that she belonged to nobody. It was part of her charm and of her lifestyle.

He had known Chuck and Georgina had something going on, but he had been waiting until she got tired of it.

"So what now?"

Hurt dripped off his each word, and he could see she was feeding on how much she was upsetting him.

Georgina was a Machiavellian and perverse and whorish, just like her child's daddy. They were a perfect match.

Dan should to be cheering. Instead, he had never been so jealous.

Not even when he had learnt that Serena had slept with Nate, at the beginning of their dating, because Nate was pretty and popular, but there was not much to recommend outside that.

Chuck was a despicable attempted rapist, but unfortunately there was more to him than that. It made him easier to dislike, on principle.

"He will be playing around with his sweet B, again, so for the time being, we can afford to fool around."

"I'm flattered" Dan stated flatly.

"You should to be" Georgina spat back, not missing a beat, uncrossing her legs. The movement had her dress riling up few inches, and Dan found he couldn't look away. Even if the gesture was intentional. Specifically because the gesture was intentional.

His mouth watered as her thighs drifted slowly open. It was like watching a scene out of Fatal Attraction in slow motion.

Shit, shitshitshit. He could NOT cave in once again.

She _enjoyed_ humiliating him. Being attracted to her was IMMORAL. She was like… like the female Chuck Bass and he despised Chuck Bass. Intensely. She was… Georgina was… spread open and not wearing any underwear.

_Jesus._

Dan Humphrey was sweating. But that didn't mean he was going to give in. He had self-esteem.

_Dignity, Humphrey, the key word to resistance is dignity._ – he tried drumming in his increasingly befuddled brain- _She is evil. Sexy but evil. Utterly evil._

"Dan-nyy"

Georgina whimpered, drawing his name out provocatively, shifting to expose herself slightly less. Dan's gaze slanted instinctively from the forbidden territory between her legs to her eyes.

Blue, hypnotic, and beckoning.

He could not breath.

"Come on, Danny. Won't you console me a little? I know you love licking me clean until you are nearly out of breath "

Why was it so very hard to resist her when _she_ talked dirty?

He would be disgusted with anyone else. Why did Georgina have to be the one woman who he had never set on a pedestal, and yet could never resist?

Why were his feet moving him forward?

"I admit I love it, too. A little bit"

His chest ached. He wanted her too damn too much and he didn't know what to do with it.

Dan Humphrey wasn't the one to go after sluts.

But it didn't matter what she did or how down she pulled him, he could never think of Georgina like a whore.

And so when he went to her and kneeled down in front of her, Dan leant forward and tried to kiss her mouth.

Too bad Georgina's hands gripped his shoulders, nails digging in his skin through his shirt, keeping him at distance.

"Focus, _Daniel_"

She snapped, an endearing but irritating frown marring her forehead.

Dan sighed in annoyance. "Your wish is my command, lady"

**AN:** Shocked? Fear not, because CG will be gradually turning platonic, so my fellow CBers breath freely and allow themselves to despise her character a bit less. fans (if they exist and if they are reading this ), wont be let down.

Eventually our Georgie will get a love interest of her own(Serena? Dan? Carter? the jury is still out on that one).

I am simply so deeply angry with Daniel Humphrey after seeing his unworthy ass messing with Chuckles in 2.05 and my CB reunion in 2.8, than I needed punishing him a little.

Hopefully he will jump off his high horse before I jump on a Humphrey killing spree.


End file.
